This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

Doctors prescribe the great outdoors to get patients moving

Dr. Conrad Sichler prescribed something the other day that his patient couldn't get at the local pharmacy.

He told the middle-aged man, stressed and long overdue for a vacation, to go for a walk in the woods.

Burlington pediatrician Dr. Anthony Ford-Jones at Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington, where he has sent a few patients to spend time in nature, June 3, 2011. (VINCE TALOTTA / TORONTO STAR)

“To me, it was a nature prescription,” says Sichler, a family physician and psychotherapist with Sweet Medicine Integrative Health Centre in Burlington.

Sichler has recommended doses of Mother Nature to at least a dozen patients to help alleviate stress and depression and boost physical activity.

The outdoors “can give people a space to simply be apart from the hectic demands of their daily lives,” he says. “It can also put people in touch with a sense of beauty and reverence that can enhance their mental and emotional health.”

Article Continued Below

Sichler grabs the same pad he uses to prescribe antibiotics and blood pressure medication to jot directions to the walking trails at nearby Mount Nemo or Dundas Valley conservation areas.

“Sometimes I'll write, ‘Repeat as often as you can.' ”

In an era when adults and children spend hours sequestered indoors, “park prescriptions” are becoming a more common remedy.

In the United States, health centres have joined forces with parks and conservation areas to get more kids and adults hiking fields and trails, paddling rivers and inhaling the scent of pine.

“The other day, I actually did see someone arriving with a prescription in their hand,” says Lynda Lancaster, spokesperson for the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, a national park on Lake Michigan about an hour from downtown Chicago.

It doesn't have to be exotic or far away. Proponents say urban green space, including playgrounds and backyards, can help soothe the soul and get muscles moving.

Rising obesity rates, inactivity and stress are top health concerns in the digital age. These doctors' orders encourage families to use their community and outdoor resources to improve health.

Article Continued Below

“I think it's a fabulous idea,” says Dr. Anthony Ford-Jones, a Burlington pediatrician who heard about park prescriptions this week during a talk by Richard Louv, author of the 2005 book Last Child in the Woods.

Louv, who coined the phrase “nature-deficit disorder,” sparked a movement to reconnect kids with nature. The California writer was at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington to promote his latest book, The Nature Principle.

Ford-Jones plans to promote the idea with his colleagues on the Canadian Paediatric Society board. He wants to create kid-friendly prescription pads so physicians can write down recommended frequency, duration and type of outdoor activity.

The pediatrician has already started. This week he prescribed more time outdoors to a physically fit 12-year-old dancer. He recommended children's programs at the botanical gardens to the mother of a frustrated 8-year-old boy with a learning disability.

Going outside is “nature's Prozac,” says Ford-Jones, who has been caring for children for 30 years. It's also key to what's known as “experience-based brain development.”

“All the sensory stimulation of feeling and seeing and smelling the outdoors causes brain activity. That's how the brain tunes in and develops.”

Louv says there hasn't been enough research to measure the benefits on mental and physical health, although it makes sense.

A few studies have shown a link between time spent outdoors and an improved sense of well-being. Active Healthy Kids Canada, which publishes an annual report on exercise levels of Canadian children, says kids who spend more time outside tend to be more active.

The correlation doesn't surprise Ford-Jones, who says the best kind of exercise is unstructured time when kids are jumping, climbing and exploring without whistles.

“Kids can burn up 90 minutes flat if they're running around and happy.”

Royal Botanical Gardens would be “thrilled” to partner with physicians, says Barb McKean, head of education. The facility has 27 kilometres of trails open to the public.

It would fit the goals of the new Back to Nature Network in Ontario (back2nature.ca), aimed at getting more kids outside. McKean is one of the organizers.

Eighteen months ago, the gardens launched a family walk program on Sunday afternoons, with guides to introduce newcomers to the park and trails.

More from The Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com